Favourite camping meals: tacos, 3-minute pasta with various sauces, stews, pizza, nachos, bread damper and scones, camp oven roasts, barbeques. The food we eat is probably more basic than we like to eat at home, but I make sure there is plenty of it and we actually get to share more meals together when we're camping than we do at home.

OK happy campers, what do you like to eat when you're out and about in the Great Outdoors?

This is a great thread idea. I grew up in the wilderness during the first half of my childhood (a log cabin w/o electricity, plumbing etc.) We never had to want for delicious food. We feasted as satisfyingly or more so than I have in my more affluent city times.

When I was young my father even wrote a cookbook on open-fire and Dutch-oven cooking.

I find my way back into the wilderness constantly and, in fact, even lead wilderness-skills/photo tours from time to time. The habits I learned as a child have been very valuable as and I love to try to hike deep into the bush with as little as I can while still pulling of satisfying meals.

Backpacking, for instance, finds me with a lot of dehydrated goods. I often premix granola and powdered milk with dried fruit so I need only add water for a hearty breakfast. Sometimes I do that with oats or grapenuts and add hot water.

More savoury dishes:
I love hot-stone grilled salami slices and cheddar on fresh corn tortillas, I know it's simple.
I also often like to thinly shave potatoes and fry in oil until browning and then crack eggs into them (dehydrated egg powder if backpacking) and dash it with soy sauce. If I remember the night before, I wrap a couple big potatoes in foil and leave them beside the coals just before bed and then for breakfast make the same dish but with larger baked potato cubes.

I make another breakfast out of Yams left beside the coals before bed (no foil necessary) I peel them and with a baked yam you can do dozens of wonderful things. I like to cube them and warm them in milk with honey for instance.

I always try to add local flavour to my food by collecting edible plants that grow nearby. I would make the 'tatters and eggs' dish with fried sulphur fungus (a wild mushroom), and onions in the Catskills of the American Eastern coast. In the desert Southwest I like to add the thinner, very potent, onions (which taste more like garlic) plus wild dwarf oregano, pinion nuts, and either sage brush or juniper, (sparingly). Japan has delicious wild mushrooms and beetles etc. (Joking about the beetles.) I actually don't know many Japanese plants and it is unfortunate that I cannot find anyone to teach me. I do often see fresh-water mini crabs (that look just like the sand crabs at the beach) scurrying around in the mountain streams. I haven't tried one yet but I must admit I'm tempted.

Do you incorporate regional foods into your camping cuisine? I haven't yet been to Australia but I'm going to Victoria soon to trek the Grampians. I would love to learn much more about your campfire cooking. I know that even grocery-store ingredients vary from one place to the next (might not be able to find my $1 Jiffy Mix boxed cornbread muffin mix).

We're not campers but here's something we used to do on skiing trips when the economy was better and we still had knees. We, typically, condoed without an advance clue what the kitchen would be equipped with. So I bought a tiny ziplock with the spice blend and another with the chopped onion & garlic. The cans were easy to transport and there was always something (even if it was the side of a tomato can) to pound out the chicken. Maybe you'd want to pound it out at home and transport it frozen.

It was almost spooky reading your post, tobias! You describe MY early childhood with my grandparents to a "t"; so many of my Urban friends think that I'm lying or spinning a tall tale when I tell them that they didn't receive electricity or phone lines until the late 60's! But, they lived in Northern Minnesota, close to the Canadian border...and "Indian" reservations. I'm 1/4 Ojibwa, the rest Scandinavian, and there was no "hurry" to bring modern conviences to the tribes. Ah, prejudice.

Like you, I always incorporate local food into my meals: elderberries, morels, watercress, grapes, mulberries, etc. You don't have a location listed for yourself or an age; can you fill in the details, as I'd like to know where you grew up.

I go very, very simple with food when camping, since I back pack into Wilderness camping areas, and don't feel like trucking excessive food on my back. Since I live in such a rural area, stepping outside of my back door is almost identical to camping, and believe it or not, several of my friends and I "camp" in the back yard all the time. I have two fire pits, a tree house that turns into a star-gazing platform at night, and a small pond with water-fall. Every night, I have a fox and raccoon families that come to the bird feeders to eat what the birds left behind. And, an occasional dear will cross from the State Park and eat my daylily buds, hours before they open!

PLUS....we have a bathroom with running water and bath, not more than 200' away!

All of your suggestions sound so tasty, that I think I'll have to try them when we camp in our Out-back this summer!

Of course you can, Barbara! And you'll have your choice of which of the two fire pits to gaze at, too!

Do you all remember that old Chestnut that we've been told since youth: If life hands you lemonade, make lemons?

Well, that's how I got my tree house/star-gazing platform.

It was back in the fall of 2002, and I had just completed an exhausting 1 1/2 year job for a Summer home resident. 17 tons of stone later and $200,000 later, we were done...my crew and I.

I hadn't taken any vacation for 2 years because of this project so I asked my good friend, Melissa, if she'd like to accompany me to Maine, so see the Fall colors. I would cover all the expenses, we'd go by Sleeper Car from Chicago to Boston, and then rent a car, winding our way up via 1A along the Atlantic Coast, from Boston to Ogunquit.

She said, "Yes!" and we were good to go. The day we left, The Weather Channel had severe storm warnings, but as we were taking Amtrak, "What did we care?!"...there wouldn't be any flight delays.

We left on the 16th of September and that night, chugging our way Eastward, Melissa got a call from her husband, Steve, on her cell phone. "Uh-huh. Right. Okay. Ya....here she is.." is what I heard.

Then, I had to listen as Steve repeated the story to me: the 110 year old Silver Maple, which was the cornerstone of the backyard, which is also the MAIN reason why I bought the cottage, had been torn apart by the 90 mile per hour winds that we had had!

What can you say?

We couldn't stop the train, we couldn't stop the storm, we couldn't stop the tree from falling down....so, I thanked him, gave Melissa the phone back, and cried all through the rest of the night.

Steve called the next morning, and said that most of the tree was still salvageable, BUT....the winds had not stopped and nothing could be done until they did. Fine, I thought, we'll cable and brace the remainder of the tree.

Two days later, we heard from Steve again. The 90 mile per hour wind gusts had gone on, for 3 days straight. The winds had taken the remaining trunks and one by one, peeled down the sides of the tree like giant celery stalks. That was it. "Grandfather Maple", my name for the tree, had to come down.

I called my local arborist, who was swamped with take-downs, and explained to Mitch my dilemma: how I was on the first 3 days of a two week vacation; how I was with a friend and we couldn't come back or we'd forfeit the entire hotel costs, etc. Mitch said he'd call me after he surveyed the damage.

Now, anyone who knows Silver Maples, knows that they 'crown' themselves out of the soil, and a 4 foot circumference trunk will be 2 feet higher than the surrounding area. Mitch called, and said that they could either A) take it down to the ground and grind out the stump OR B) they could leave the only bit of stump that was left, and wait for me to come back from vacation to make my final decision.

I chose the later. While we were gone, Mitch and Steve took care of everything. The vacation went onward; we had fun. We ate lobster and shopped. And I almost forgot about losing Grandfather Maple.

The fact of my loss hit both of us when we drove home from O'Hare, two weeks later. As I pulled up into my drive-way, there was sun...lots and lots and lots of sun. And no maple. Grandfather Maples crown was SO huge, he took up 1/2 of my lot and 1/2 of the neighbors. He was over 6 stories tall and just as wide, and kept the back yard as a cool respite. I had a swing hanging from one of his arms, and the raccoons nested in his center. And he was gone. Almost.

We walked into the backyard, and it was MY version of 9/11: Mitch had had to 'limb' up the branches, some of them also 3 feet in diameter, because they had covered my neighbors yard. I was expecting complete chaos in back, but by some magic, AND I DO MEAN MAGIC, Grandfather Maple did NOT harm one ash tray, pot, plant or hanging glass globe in my yard. When he went down, he fell across the only square footage that existed in either my or my neighbors yard that was grass...nothing but grass. Mitch had never seen a tree so wide, come down with no resulting damage!

As Mitch said, "He was a friend to the end."

They didn't know what I had wanted to do with his remains, so they had left them where they were, adding that they'd come over and remove them when I had decided what to do. And, they could also grind him out of existence, if I decided to remove all evidence of his life.

After dropping my friend at her home, I went into the back yard and lay on his bones. Here was my best friend, who had protected this land and this house for over 110 years; because his tree rings were exposed, I could now count them.

For days, all I could do was cry over his loss, my loss, and the HUGE amount of sun that I now had in the garden. It's not that I didn't want a sunnier yard, but if it meant losing HIM, then I'd take shade.

More than anything, I wanted to commemorate fallen my friend. I sat on one of his broken limbs, sketch pad in hand, and came up with a design. I then called one of my friends and contractors, a custom wood worker. He and his wife came over, I told them the story of Grandfather Maple, not caring how stupid I appeared to call my maple by name, and told Rich my plan.

The next day, he came over with his crew, they carted away all of the remains of Grandfather Maple, and I was left with the 4 foot wide stump, 6 feet in the air.

One month later, Rich and crew came back, and with the bones of my maple, installed a hexagonal-shaped platform, surrounded at waist height with a rustic railing to lean against, and a wonderful set of stairs, with railing, that you gracefully ascend to his heights. The funny thing was, it didn't take long before the magic of my tree had settled into all that knew him, even after his death. When the workers and Rich were constructing the platform and railings, they kept mentioning how 'happy' Grandfather maple would be to see this.

When they were done, all of us, eight in total, climbed the stairs, cracked open our beers, spilled some on Grandfather to give him a taste of draft, and saluted our tree house/star-gazing platform. Where before only Grandfather saw the stars at night, because his dense foliage prevented you from seeing them, now...anyone lying in Grandfather's 'lap' could count the constellations, as he still could. I have since planted a rock garden at one of his feet, and a small pond on the other side to keep him company.

Without doubt, it was the best case scenario for what was a tragedy to my heart. When friends come over, it's to Grandfather that they first run. It is my cats favorite hangout, either on the steps or the platform itself. The wood peckers hunt his trunk for beetles, the robins perch on his railing, looking/listening for worms wriggling underground. And I have the sun, and the moon and the stars to look at now...along with my
Grandfather Maple.

It's funny; when I was living with my Grandparents, my Grandpa had promised to build me a tree house, but my Grandmother forbid him from doing so, saying "She'll break her neck and kill herself!" I guess, in the long run, he kept his promise to me.

I grew up several places. My parents moved a lot after they divorced and I spent a lot of time with both.

I was born in the catskills in the mid 70s.

I lived mostly in the Catskills, New Mexico, California, Washington state, and Ohio. I guess I managed to spend some time in all the different outdoor environments of the lower 48 (except for swampland, still never been to the swamps!) Both of my parents were outdoorsy people.

Would you mind sharing a few of your favourite campfire recipes and or describe a bit how you cook i.e. what utensils etc.? I am especially interested in traditional recipes and recipes incorporating native foods.

tobias: I'm so glad to read your background! You could write a travel log with all the places you've lived.

Speaking of old times, on CBS news last week, they had a news article about this town down south that finally had phone service hooked up...for the first time EVER!

Sorry, I don't have a waterfall; I looked over my post, to make sure that I hadn't put that in there. I have two ponds that I dug out myself ; one of them 3' by 4' and the other one is 8' by 5'. They are just the perfect size for my home, and they keep everything in scale. I do have a pump in both of them and water trickling down the rocks, so, I guess I have baby waterfalls.

Regarding recipes for camping, you won't have luck from me, sadly. Because I like to go really rustic, I'd only bring dehydrated foods (exotic to be sure, but dehydrated) and fresh fruit like oranges and apples. I know that some people like to take it to the edge with wilderness camping and gourmet fare but I've never gone that route.

Our one luxury is a camp fire expresso maker...SERIOUSLY! One of my best memories is of me and a friend, with our butane stove sitting on a rock, in mid stream and the expresso maker on top, bobbing around in a sun-warmed creek. We had tiny china expresso cups with lemon peels inside and cognac soaked sugar cubes, so when the expresso hit the flavours, it got caught up in the air around us and seemed to circle our heads for minutes. Then, sipping our coffee, we just sat in the creek, letting minnows nibble our toes.

DQ--thank you so much for the moving tale of Grandfather Maple! (and very well told I might add) I understand the affection one can have for a big ol' tree. My buddy is also a maple, a grand sugar maple that spreads out in our back yard, home to squirrels and grackles. He is getting on, we have no idea how far, and we do fear his passing. In 1998 we were at the epicentre of an ice storm. 5 days of freezing rain resulting in hundreds of our trees being savaged. You could go out in the morning and just stand and listen as branches were crashing and trunks were splitting. Our lane way out back has never recovered and none of the poplars survived. We of course worried about our grand old fellow and he did lose some major branches. The first summer it looked pretty iffy but now he is strong and burly again, and every spring when he drips sweet sap and sends out his leaves we rejoice! (we were also without electricity and telephone and heat for 16 days but with two woodstoves and a woodshed we survived in our 150 year old stone house quite nicely!)_________________Vivant Linguae Mortuae!!

Yeah! A fellow Tree Lover!! Perhaps, David, you and I are reincarnated Druids?

It was a nice retelling of your story of your Grand Ol' Fellow; I'm glad that you found my story interesting, too.

Your home sounds simply luscious with all the stone and woodstoves; it doesn't sound like you missed the lack of Creature Comforts one bit.

Speaking of Creature Comforts, we have a Winter Storm Warning for the Chicago/Michigan area, so I'm making a pot of Split Pea and Ham soup for dinner and MORE baked custard for dessert.

And lastly, tobias, I've felt badly that I couldn't contribute some useful information for you so I found some awesome sites for you to check out.

This first one is ALL about camping food; it's a massive site, will take you days to get through, but what fun! There are areas that tell you what type of cookware to bring, how to cook in nothing but foil, etc. I spent half an hour on there and I'm ready to go camping NOW!
http://www.chuckwagondiner.com/index.html

This link is quite fun; it's premise is K.I.S.S.: Keep It Simple Stupid! It's written by a camping family and includes more hands-on information than you can shake a stick at! http://my.execpc.com/~thomas/list.htm#basic

And, I think I saved the BEST for last!!! This site was so good, so comprehensive and made SO MUCH SENSE that I actually bookmarked it AND printed out the instructions, adding it to my camping gear! It lists absolutely everything you could possibly use for camping. No recipes, but damn! , they nailed everything else! http://www.camping-usa.com/checklist.html

Now, I can go about my day, guilt-free, for thread-jacking this topic!

Your soup sounds great Rainey. Thanks for the recipe. Does anyone else have recipes to share?

Well, in truth, it's quite ordinary but good and substantial nonetheless. It's virtue lies in how simple it is to prepare and how little it requires in the way of implements. ...which was what I thought could be useful.

I hope it makes the open air Down Under as hospitable as it does a rustic mountain condo.